BURNLEY College looks set to expand after it announced plans to erect two new buildings.

Director Colin Crowther has lodged an application to build a new construction skills centre and a teaching block at the college’s Princess Way campus.

College bosses said the development would provide ‘a high-quality learning environment for all students and members of the community’.

If given the go-ahead, the project would see the current brickwork and plastering workshop re-housed into a purpose-built 970 square metre construction skills centre.

The proposed 630 square metre, one-storey teaching block would provide additional teaching and computer space to ‘support growth’ across other subjects.

The teaching block will be designed to allow three further floors to be constructed in the future, which could create an additional 1,800 square metres of teaching space.

In a planning statement, college bosses said: “The two new additions to the campus, along with the college’s desire to make improvements to the campus, will help attract potential future students to the college.”

The design and access statement added: “On completion, this project will allow the college to effectively expand its specialist engineering offer to meet current and future demands and create new, bespoke facilities for construction trades, all supported by good quality, flexible general teaching and IT facilities.”

The college has around 7,600 students on full-time, part-time, apprenticeship and training courses, most of which attend classes at its £81million hub in Princess Way.

Development chiefs at Burnley Council have already agreed to support the project in principle.

Planning officer Graeme Thorpe said: “Use of the site for another separate purpose has the potential to cause conflict with the existing surrounding uses, and would be a logical space for the college to expand.”